


One Breath

by fictorium



Category: West Wing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-19
Updated: 2010-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-14 07:19:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/pseuds/fictorium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simon is Alive AU - Santos Presidency era.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Breath

  
Since that night in New York, when a bulletproof vest saved his life (but not his dress shirt), CJ has mentally been holding her breath.

Their dates have been infrequent, frustrated by scheduling and the demands of two impossible jobs. Simon works twice as hard to stay fit, to keep up with the young guns snapping at his heels. Every sore muscle or twisted ankle sets off a silent panic in his eyes about retirement and desk jobs, and while it would be the answer to so many of CJ's silent prayers, she doesn't really want that for him.

  
They call it a day, reluctantly, when she is appointed Chief of Staff. She's a protectee again, and over a glass of red wine she doesn't ask him to give up his Presidential detail for her. He sighs in both regret and relief, and leaves her that night with just one kiss, leaves her to the pile of briefing books that never seems to reduce in number.

  
But an end can be a beginning, she discovers. Their eyes meet in crowded rooms, and as her own power and influence grows, fewer people dare question why she let that handsome man slip away. CJ has always chosen her career, and that's why she gets to run a country at the President's side. It's worth it, almost all of the time.

  
Inauguration Day is her bittersweet ending and moments after she says, for the first time in eight years, that she doesn't work for the White House, she sees Simon standing there. He's dressed in jeans, a heavy jacket that combats the January cold. He looks as ruggedly handsome as ever, and in the chill of the morning air, it takes her breath away.

  
"I'm 57 next year," is all he says.

  
That's his retirement age, she remembers. He explains his resignation in clipped sentences, not wanting to start with a President that he can't stick around to protect. CJ smiles at his dogged loyalty, right there in his words and the set of his jaw. She loves that about him, she realizes, and this isn't going to be fooling around this time.

  
Simon kisses her, right there in front of the White House, and CJ responds as enthusiastically as she knows how. She's going to save Africa, and he's going to train bodyguards for impossibly rich people. They've lived their dream, paid their dues, and now they get each other as a reward.

  
She watches him sleeping, later, in her bed. Over his shoulder is the dried, framed rose that he got her on the night of their first kiss. CJ had grabbed it from him as he argued with paramedics about the treatment he didn't need. He looks younger in the evening light, and she feels younger even though her body will protest in the morning.

  
But for once, she doesn't need to be anywhere but right here, and CJ exhales slowly, before falling asleep with a smile on her face.


End file.
